Sarah Finer is Professor of Clinical Diabetes at Queen Mary University of London and Honorary Consultant Diabetologist at Barts Health NHS Trust. Her work focuses on improving the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of type 2 diabetes in diverse populations historically underrepresented in research. She is passionate about overcoming health inequalities and takes inspiration from her patients and colleagues in East London. Her research is enabled by an outstanding multidisciplinary team and a wide network of collaborators across the UK and internationally, spanning genomics, epidemiology, clinical and health services research, and community engagement. She is Co-Lead of Genes & Health, one of the world’s largest community-based studies of British Bangladeshi and Pakistani people, which has recruited over 74,000 participants and transformed understanding of early onset type 2 diabetes in South Asians. She also co-leads Black Health Legacy, a new research programme for Black African and Black Caribbean communities in the UK, whose first objective is to understand the impact of genetics on HbA1c accuracy. She is honoured to give the RD Lawrence Lecture.